Farmington, Embracing Religion, Education And Shopping

Quick - name the greater Hartford town with a Mormon temple, Miss Porter's school and a mall.

Farmington has many faces: from the traditions of its Main Street and Miss Porter's School, to the glittering Westfarms mall and to the high tech medical and research facilities at UConn Health.

Although Mormons may not be the first religious group that comes to mind when you think of this typical New England town, the planned opening in 2016 of a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints temple is sure to add to the town's diverse complexion.

The selection of a tract along Route 4 in Farmington as the new home of a 25,000-square-foot temple with a 115-foot-tall spire topped with a gold-leafed statue of the angel Moroni, a significant figure in the Mormon religion, is sort of an accident of history. The site was chosen because Farmington is the birthplace of an early church leader, Wilford Woodruff.

The church was organized in 1830 by Joseph Smith, who wrote the "Book of Mormon" that he transcribed from golden plates that he said had been written hundreds of years earlier by the prophet Moroni. Thus began the movement that now boasts of a membership of more than just over 15 million and is based in Salt Lake City.

Among the church's early adherents was Woodruff, who was born in Farmington in 1807 and who was baptized by church missionaries in Richland, N.Y., in 1833. Woodruff accompanied an ailing Brigham Young, then the church's leader, to the Salt Lake Valley in July 1847. He would be ordained as its fourth president in 1889.

RICHARD SYLVESTER, Richard Sylvester

RICHARD SYLVESTER, Richard Sylvester

Woodruff effectively ended the church's controversial endorsement of plural marriage in 1890, and in 1894 he established the Genealogical Society of Utah. Mormons believe that families have an eternal bond and that the living can baptize their dead ancestors by proxy. That makes knowing the family history all that more important.

When Woodruff was born, Farmington was a one-church Congregational town. Next came the Methodists, who were followed, in no particular order, by the Baptists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Evangelicals, Catholics, Jews, Pentecostals and nondenominational. Church officials in Connecticut anticipate the Mormon temple will attract 30,000 to 40,000 worshippers. Currently, the two closest Mormon temples are in Boston and Manhattan.

Cloe Poisson, Hartford Courant

Cloe Poisson, Hartford Courant

Farmington also has an extensive array of shopping, world-class research and medical facilities, excellent schools, the scenic beauty of the Farmington River or the acres and acres and acres of recreational land.

Westfarms, home to Nordstrom, J.C. Penney, Lord & Taylor, Macys and more than 100 other stores, is a shopper's paradise. UConn Health, which provides world-class care, will soon be joined by The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, a leader in using genetic engineering to fight diseases. Since 1843, Miss Porter's has educated young women for the ever-changing roles they play in a society that they have helped shape.

Public education in Farmington also continues to shine. According to the 2013-14 Farmington High School profile, 83 percent of the 320 graduates of the Class of 2013 were headed to four-year colleges and 13 percent were bound for two-year colleges or technical schools. The students' performance on the SAT exceeded the national averages for reading, writing and math.

U.S. News & World Report ranked Farmington High School among the top 10 in Connecticut for 2014.

The town's population of 5,300 in 1940 doubled to 10,800 by 1960. It doubled again to 20,608 by 1980. Commerce and industry decentralized. Westfarms opened in 1974 at the West Hartford town line. That followed the opening of the UConn Health Center and John Dempsey Hospital — now combined as UConn Health — in 1967 along Farmington Avenue.

Farmington is now home to 25,000 residents, most of whom are quite satisfied with the quality of life in their town, despite traffic nightmares on Route 4 during rush hours and some growing pains, including the need to ante up for a new sewage treatment plant.

A survey of 400 residents taken last summer by the Pert Group as part of an update of the town's strategic plan showed that 96 percent of residents report quality of life in Farmington as excellent or good.

The Farmington River figured prominently in the history of this area, and continues to be a focus today. The river, before the arrival of the Puritans from England in 1640, was known among the locals as the Tunxis, which has been loosely translated into English as "the place where the river bends." Look at a map of Farmington and you will see the reason for the name. The river generally flows southeast from its headwaters in Massachusetts until it reaches the Metacomet Ridge in Farmington, where it suddenly turns to the north, with water added from the Pequabuck River, toward Windsor where it empties into the Connecticut River. The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection in 2010 rated the 20-mile stretch between the Pequabuck and the Connecticut rivers as unfit for recreational use, in part because of the Pequabuck's poor water quality and because the effluent from the town's sewage treatment plant cannot satisfy the requirements for removing nitrogen and phosphorous nutrients that are harming the waters of Long Island Sound.

Not taking pollution lightly, the DEEP has been after Farmington to upgrade its sewage treatment plant, especially in light of residential growth. In November, Farmington residents approved a $57.24 million project to upgrade the water pollution control facility that was built in the 1960s and expanded twice, the last time in 1994 at a cost of $20 million. The facility also serves portions of Avon, Burlington, Canton and UConn Health, which together will kick in $9.21 million of the total coast.

If you can put up with the traffic and sewer upgrade, the rest of life in Farmington is a walk in the park, or open space. In 2005, the town possessed 2,568 acres of open space or roughly 43 percent of all the open space in town. The town's four largest holdings are: the Farmington River floodplain at the bend (619 acres), the Farmington Town Memorial Forest, (267 acres), Westwoods Golf Course (230 acres) and Tunxis Mead Park (135 acres). Just over half of the town's holdings are used for parks and recreation.

Agricultural land comprises 500 acres with 375 acres designated as open space in subdivisions. The Farmington Land Trust owns 184 acres of open space.

The town also maintains 12 recreation areas that include six baseball fields, one football field, 13 field hockey and soccer fields, nine multipurpose fields, 10 basketball courts, 21 tennis courts, two tracks, six indoor gyms, two golf courses and four swimming areas. There are also 19 acres of cemetery space available. There's also hiking, biking and canoeing and kayaking on the Farmington River.

Farmington is also home to Winding Trails, a nonprofit, conservation organization that offers a summer day camp, cross country skiing, special events educational and membership programs on 380 acres in town.

According to the town's strategic planning report for 2014, more than two-thirds of the 400 residents surveyed rate Farmington as a good place to do business. The survey showed a preference for developing retail and restaurant businesses in Unionville Center and in the vicinity of UConn Health.